


20/20

by ghoulaesthetics (astraielle)



Series: Cat Ryder vs. The Universe [8]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 15:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13010607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraielle/pseuds/ghoulaesthetics
Summary: Ryder is distracting; Jaal allows it.





	20/20

**Author's Note:**

> from the prompt "hands on the other person’s back, fingertips pressing under their top, drawing gentle circles against that small strip of bare skin that make them break the kiss with a gasp" ty kiana
> 
> this,,, was not intended to be a small makeout fic but uh. thats what we got. 
> 
> (whats up with me and weird titles huh)

Moments like these were few and far in between, and she simply couldn’t get  _enough_  of him after they’d departed from their visit to Havarl a few weeks prior. 

There was too much to do and too little time to sit down and enjoy each other. Technically, they hadn’t even been on a real  _date_  yet. So for now at least, she’d have to be content with brief meetings and quick touches wherever they could squeeze them in. 

They had exactly one hour until they reached Eos. Cat knew exactly where she wanted to spend the rare free hour, and it definitely wasn’t going over reports with Cora. Instead, she made a beeline for the room where Jaal had set himself up, letting herself in with Pathfinder’s access. Not that he’d locked it or anything–in fact, he’d sent the email inviting her up in the first place.  _Come discuss some specs with me? I’ve been playing around with a few different modifications on some of the sniper models; I’d like to get your opinion_ , he wrote. Well, he’d written a few more lines, but that was as far as she got before she’d practically sprinted away from her terminal. 

He was sitting on the makeshift bed at the bad of the room, datapad in hand and staring at it intensely. Two fully assembled rifles sat on the desk, along with enough parts for a third. She found herself slightly disappointed that it hadn’t just been some sort of ruse to get her in his room (not that she needed something like that in the first place). 

“Hey,” she said breezily as she stepped in, the door shutting automatically behind her. “You rang?” 

He looked up from the datapad, an easy smile settling on his face. “I did.” Moving over slightly, he patted the vacant area beside him, inviting her to sit. “You moved faster than I thought. I assumed I’d have more than thirty seconds after I hit the ‘send’ button,” He teased.

She rolled her eyes, but flashed a small, affectionate smile nonetheless as she crossed the room and took the offered seat. The bed was long, long enough to accommodate his full height, but she made a point of sliding in close enough that their thighs pressed together. “Yeah, well, it is a whole fifty feet down the hall to get here–normally the trip would take me a few days, but we’re on a tight schedule here. Specs to look over, things to do,” she said with a flippant wave of her hand, trying to ignore the way his own hand came down almost instinctively to rest on her thigh. 

He laughed at that, and the sound made her heart flutter. “No doubt,” he agreed, switching to another page of information on the datapad. “Though knowing you, I can assume that’s not the only reason you moved so quickly.” He shot her a small, impish grin, giving her leg a slight squeeze. 

She twisted to face him better, matching his expression. “The fact that we’ve been tonguing in just about every place we can on this ship for the last two weeks whenever we can give it away?” 

“That may or may not have something to do with it. If I had to hazard a guess, you’d rather do something else than go over these modifications..?” He looked at her expectantly, eagerly. “Because now that you’re here in front of me, I find myself… straying as well.” 

“Is that so?” She asked, breathing quickening ever so slightly. The hand on her leg had moved up to her hip, pulling her in closer. If she shifted just so, it would be nothing to crawl on to his lap. She didn’t catch exactly when he’d put the datapad down, but his other hand had travelled to her jaw, tilting her head so that he could get a better view. Jaal regarded her with a muted hunger and fascination, her cheeks flushed under the stare. 

“You are distracting,” he murmured, close enough to her ear that the sound of his voice made her shiver. “It’s a wonder I’m able to get anything done when you’re near.” 

“Then by all means,” she said lowly, somehow pulling herself away long enough so that she could straddle his thighs. “By all means, let’s get distracted.” 

Their kisses always started out slowly, even when they were pressed for time. He wrapped his arms around her waist as she pressed her mouth against his, pulling her in as close as he could bring her. She curved into the touch effortlessly, wrapping her own arms around his neck as easily as she could. It was more for support than anything else; he made her feel weak and limbless in the absolute best way. 

He bit down gently on her lower lip, a silent request for her to open her mouth. She obliged with a soft sound of pleasure, exhaling sharply through her nose at the first taste of his tongue. Tentatively at first, then more boldly he explored her mouth, sliding his tongue against hers in an antagonistically deliberate manner, delighting in the way she’d jolt in surprise and satisfaction when he’d take a swipe at her palette.   

Slowly, she began to grind her hips down against his, smirking against his lips smugly at the muffled groans her movements caused. Jaal ran hot as a furnace as a general rule, but she could have sworn that this was only serving to make him even  _hotter_. That, or the way liquid heat seemed to be shooting itself through her veins could be blamed for the flush that ran from her face to her chest. It intensified even more when she rose up slightly on her knees, carefully pressing him back into the makeshift mattress without breaking the kiss, until she was lying fully on his chest, arms framing either side of his head. 

She broke off with a light gasp as his hands went downwards to give her ass a squeeze. “Fucker,” she laughed breathlessly, ducking her head down to place several open-mouthed kisses on his jaw. At this angle, she could slate her hips against his even better, trying to relieve the heat that was licking at every inch of her skin. He flat-out  _moaned_  when she started to bite and suck at the delicate skin where his neck met his cowl, and it only encouraged her even more.

While she was busy trying her best to mark him up, his hands had begun to creep back upwards, this time travelling under her hoodie, under her shirt, moving in a slow circle pattern up the now-exposed skin of her back. 

The sudden feeling of cool air startled her, but not enough to deter her from her task; the sounds he made when she bit down on his cowl just so were far too good for her to even consider stopping at this point. If she listened hard enough, she could even make out several breathless gasps of her name in there too. 

What did break her concentration was a quick, pleasurable shock of bioelectricity that came seemingly out of no where. Well, not no where--it came from where his hands were firmly pressed to the middle of her back, still moving in their circles. She gasped hard, jerking her head up from the sizeable hickey she was leaving and stilling her hips in their motions. 

“What,” she breathed, “What was that?” 

He blinked at her innocently. “Did you forget, Darling One?” 

“Not exactly firing on all cyllinders right now. Kinda focused on other stuff.” 

“Mm, fair point,” he said, shifting slightly under her. “Was it too much?”

She shook her head quickly. “ _Hell_ no--in fact, you’ve got my permission to do that whenever you want.” 

He grinned up at her roguishly. “We should continue, then--seeing as we’re on limited time here.”

“Oh, absolutely.” 

She ducked down again, capturing his lips once more. She was just starting to use teeth, just starting to breathe hard once more when the intercom crackled to life above them. 

“Ryder?” Kallo’s voice came through clearly, oblivious to the scene he was interrupting. 

She pulled back and groaned, this time in frustration. _It’s not like he **knows** what you’re down here doing_, she reminded herself. “Right here Kallo--something wrong up there?” 

“Nothing of the sort,” he said cheerily, and then dropping his voice down to a less perky attitude, “but Director Tann is on the vidcon, and he says it’s imperative he speaks with you as soon as possible--I took the liberty of informing him that you’d be there shortly.” 

She made a noise of defeated frustration, muttering to herself and pressing her face into Jaal’s shoulder. She could feel him laughing quietly underneath her, patting her back sympathetically. 

“Ryder?” Kallo asked.

With a deep sigh, she propped herself back up, glaring hard at the source of the sound. “I’m here, I’m here,” she grumbled, pushing off of Jaal’s chest and sitting up fully. “Let him know I’ll be there in a few.” 

“Noted,” he said, and then the line went quiet.

“So,” Jaal began, propping himself up on his elbows and looking at her with a bemused expression.

She tried her best to smile back, but was sure her expression read more as ‘pain’. “Rain check on the makeout session?” She said with a sigh, reluctant to climb off of him. 

“We’ll have time to do this again later,” he promised, gently taking her by the jaw and placing a final, quick kiss against her lips. “And you can always hang up on Tann after the first minute. It wouldn’t be the first time.” 

“True,” she mused, smoothing her slightly-rumpled clothes out as soon as she stood on the floor. “It’s always funny to watch him squirm when I start threatening him.”

“Fun for the rest of us too,” he pointed out. “Now go, take care of your responsibilities.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” she chuckled as she started to walk off. “Keep talking like that and maybe next time I’ll make sure we just discuss specs when I come see you.”

“I’d feel more threatened by that if I actually believed you could,” he said dryly. “Go before Kallo calls down here again,” he said fondly one last time. 

She tossed one final grin over her shoulder, with a promise to be back within ten minutes if she could, and tried desperately to ignore the way her back would be humming with the memory of his touch for the rest of the afternoon. 


End file.
